Seattle soccer fan became toast of the internet with his map for where to find alcohol at the World Cup - GeekWire

Ed Ball of Seattle with beers successful manus earlier heading to Qatar for the World Cup past month. (Twitter photograph via @AlcoholinQ)

Ed Ball is backmost successful Seattle aft spending 10 days traveling to the World Cup successful Qatar. But his bequest lives connected on the internet.

Ball is the creator of the Qatar Alcohol Map, a task helium took connected earlier this twelvemonth arsenic a mode to assistance fans of shot — and drinking — find places to imbibe successful a federation wherever specified enactment is not portion of the culture.

The representation pinpoints astir 200 restaurants, bars and clubs that service intoxicant successful the superior metropolis of Doha. An accompanying spreadsheet offers up details specified arsenic the closet stadiums and bid stations to drinking spots, their websites, paper links and more.

Ball, who does extracurricular aerospace income for chemic organisation institution Cascade Columbia, lives successful Seattle’s Georgetown vicinity with his woman Sarah and their 2 dogs. He’s been a shot instrumentality each his life, supporting the U.S. men’s and women’s nationalist teams for arsenic agelong arsenic helium tin remember.

When helium and his woman made plans earlier this twelvemonth to be the World Cup, helium began enactment connected a Google representation to fulfill his different emotion — beer.

“I enactment successful implicit 100 hours connected it,” Ball told GeekWire this week. “Was ever updating and taking suggestions, making tiny changes and additions.”

The 2022 World Cup Qatar Alcohol Map by Ed Ball shows spots wherever shot fans tin get a portion successful the country. (Google My Maps screenshot)

The task became a viral sensation successful the run-up to the tournament and successful the weeks since it started, garnering sum around the world. The representation has present been viewed much than 1 cardinal times.

A Twitter leafage dedicated to the project, which has less than 300 followers, shows Ball successful 1 tweet sporting a ‘Merica T-shirt, USA scarf and stars and stripes socks arsenic helium chugs 2 pints of brew earlier helium traveled to Qatar.

He and his woman spent 7 days successful Doha and 3 successful Dubai. He estimates they deed up 15 antithetic drinking establishments portion traveling.

“It was astonishing to accidental the least,” Ball said.

In a recap diary of his travel that helium shared with GeekWire, Ball details his regular observations arsenic an American instrumentality successful the Middle East. One example: “Day 1 — I decided to propulsion my luck contiguous and truly spot what this ‘beer ban’ was each about. I went with the tasteful ‘USA DRINKING TEAM’ T-shirt successful large bold letters …”

Ball, who antecedently traveled to Brazil to spot the 2014 World Cup, won’t person to spell rather truthful acold adjacent clip — oregon physique a representation to find his favourite bars. The 2026 World Cup volition beryllium hosted successful North America and Seattle is 1 of 11 U.S. cities wherever games volition beryllium held.

Asked whether drinking made it easier to tummy the USMNT nonaccomplishment to The Netherlands successful the Round of 16 past weekend, Ball laughed.

“It ever does,” helium said. “But I person precocious hopes for 2026!”